pynchonv

I love this film. It has a meandering and unrealistic plot and was shot on a shoestring budget but, man...I love this film. It's not a perfect film, it may not even be a good film. But its gritty imperfections combine to make it even more emotionally affecting and, well, lovable. There's a dozen things to which I could point and say, "That should have been better" or "That's totally out of place" but, if I were given the option, I wouldn't change a thing (well...the orchestral swells in the last five minutes of the film make my teeth hurt. But, other than that, not a thing!). This is cinema that is authentically and movingly human. Its soul shines irresistibly through the quirky tone and budget constraints.

Come on, movie people! License this film and release it in some format so I can see it in a non-film-festival form! Not that film festivals aren't wonderful, but a much larger group of people deserve to see the wonderful human confusion that is Dirt.

I love this film.

It's impossible for me to objectively consider this movie. Not that I haven't tried, mind you - but I sit down, and I pop in the aged VHS, and I watch the opening...and suddenly I'm five years old again and clutching my very own Care Bear and watching the movie with open eyes and an eager heart.

I can see, objectively, that this movie is a BIZARRE combination of cuddly baby merchandising-mascots and creepy prepubescent children with evil powers that has a thin story and uninteresting animation. But my inner five-year-old goes, "Yay! Care Bears!" every time I think about it. So - I'd only (cautiously, reluctantly) recommend this movie for those who saw it during their early youth and can call on the awesome power of nostalgia while watching it (like me) OR those lovably cynical Gen-X/Y-ers who deliberately seek out the wonderfully bad/strange (a category in which this movie...definitely belongs). To those actually looking for a compelling movie or wholesome family entertainment: You might want to keep looking.

A slight but thoughtful character study that focuses on bounty hunter Howard Kemp (Jimmy Stewart) as he attempts to bring in the wily Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), with differing amounts of aid and setbacks from his two partners (a former Army officer (Ralph Meeker) and ineffective miner (Millard Mitchell)) and Vandergroat's "girl", Lina Patch (Janet Leigh). As with any film with more than three vaguely similar characters, endless fun may be had with viewing the three bounty hunters as representing the same character at different stages of life [the prickly Roy Anderson morphs into the bitter Howard Kemp ages into the dejected Jesse Tate after repeated failures], and the isolated setting further emphasizes the gritty way each of the five get under each other's skin. However, the movie also provides for more simple-minded pleasures - it's entertaining to watch Vandergroat nimbly pull the strings of his captors to orchestrate strife and discord, and the relationship between Patch and Kemp is sweet if a little out of character for both of them ("Why, films must have a love story! It makes motivations so convenient!"). The revelation of Kemp's inner turmoils and eventual growth is delicately developed during the course of the movie in his interactions with his four surrounding individuals, and the ending, while featuring a character's slightly unbelievable change of heart, still manages the nifty trick of being happy AND tragic.